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Monday, January 07, 2013

Ocean quilt {Finished}

Way back, what seems like a million years ago, I got a custom quilt inquery. There was a pair of little boys, who share a room, and needed coordinating ocean quilts.

I had a ton of fun picking out wonderful ocean-colored fabrics. (Maybe a bit too much fun, adding in some of that 'while the cart if open fabric', and I had 55(!!!) yards of fabric arrive at my house from 6 online shops.)

Whirlygiggles in two sizes, with a special paper-pieced dolphin block for Luke's quilt.

And no photo of the other one at all - boo!! But both finished at about the same size - 81" x 88"

Look at how well I used a bunch of the extra yardage on the pieced back.

I did both quilt backs like this.

The paper pieced dolphins were a labor of love. From the start, as I hunted high and low for the perfect pattern. To the final debate over how to quilt them.

I didn't want to include them in my overall stipple. So I outlined the frame (which is my favorite Kona blue, Glacier), then did a seaweed kind of wavy thing in the water, and sketchy echo quilting in the dolphins.

Now, this was super cool. Luke's mom wanted to include some of his artwork in the quilt. I didn't want it to fade over time, and also know how hard it can be to draw on fabric.

I had her send me a picture on a regular piece of paper, and made sure that he signed it. Originally, I intended to hand embroider a representation of his art. But then I started working at the Bernina store, and met some girls that are really into machine embroidery. With the 830 and fancy digitizing software, they are able to take any jpg and turn it into a fabric sketch. Marcy made this awesome quilt label - it's about 5x7" - and is almost an exact replica of Luke's drawing. I didn't want to quilt over it, so I hand stitched it to the back after everything was done.

One final picture, with the Kona glacier binding and a touch of mustard added in. It picked up the couple bits of mustard in prints throughout the quilt.

They were sent off to be loved (priority, insured UPS, with signature confirmation - I didn't want to chance them getting lost!).

Love the color! It's beautiful! Have you thought of selling those online? I think you'll make a good penny out of it! Sell it here: http://www.tripleclicks.com/12133487/ECA . Just sign up and place your product.